Tag Archives: online

I’ve been musing on the topic of love ahead of preaching at the weekend. The Gospel lesson is John 17: 20-26 where Jesus prays to God that those who come after him would be one, and known for their love.

It set me thinking about the many times that Internet discussions get way out of hand. So here is an adapted 1 Corinthians 13, the famous Bible chapter on love.

If I speak in the tongues of Google and of LinkedIn, but do not have love, I am a noisy ringtone or a nuisance call. And if I have blogging powers, and understand all mysteries of code and all knowledge of hashtags, and if I have all Facebook, so as to ‘friend’ many, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my PayPal balance, and if I hand over my smartphone so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on having the last word; it is not interested in a flame war; it does not rejoice in cyberstalking, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.

But as for updates, they will come to an end; as for multiple online identities, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we tweet only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I Snapchatted like a child, I thought like a child, I shared like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish updates. For now we see pixels in a screen, dimly, but then we will see Facetime to Facetime. Now the Wikipedia page is only a stub but it doesn’t stop me writing about it; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known – and will know when to be offline. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

People grumble about over-use of the online world and perhaps there’s something about that. But when it’s used well and with creativity there are wonderful possibilities of communicating holy truths in exciting ways.

Today we went to a nativity that told the age-old story of God becoming human for us in Jesus. Children were important to the cast and the looks on their faces as they help draw us in were great.

But those who planned looked for something extra and used technology to take us further: with a TV ad to remind us that giving is important and a superbly-creative use of Twitter, Facebook and much more to tell the Christmas story in a very different way.

You can see the Digital Story of the Nativity here. Please do, it’s terrific.